Celebrity Cyborgs

Check out these amazing Photoshop images featuring "Celebrity Cyborgs."

No Bloom at TV04

I just found out that Howard Bloom will not be joining us in Toronto for TransVision 2004. As regrettable as this is, this development shouldn't have too much of an impact on the conference as we've already got a formidable lineup of speakers. It also means that Steve Mann will give the opening keynote address on the evening of Friday August 6.

Shedding Light on Genetic Justice

My review of From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice has been posted on Betterhumans.

More additions to the BH editorial advisory board

We've got some more additions to the Betterhumans Editorial Advisory Board. After only two days here's how it looks:

- Nick Bostrom, transhumanist philosopher, WTA chair
- Mike Treder, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
- Chris Phoenix, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
- Natasha Vita-More, Transhuman Arts and Culture
- John Smart, Accelerating Change
- Ramez Naam, Apex Nanotechnology
- Aubrey de Grey, biogerontologist
- Steve Mann, Cyborg
- Damien Broderick, author: The Spike

There will be many more as I sent off a bunch of invites this evening.

Addendum 05/11
A couple more:

- Max More
- Howard Bloom

Addendum 05/11 Part 2
One more:

- Mark Walker

Dale Carrico's New Blog

Betterhumans Progressive Futures columnist and friend Dale Carrico has launched his own blog, Amor Mundi.

84% of the Betterhumans audience can't be wrong

Interesting results to our nanotechnology poll on Betterhumans this week. We asked, "Which scientist is right about the prospect of nanobots, Eric Drexler or Richard Smalley?" While I expected the majority to side with Drexler, I was stunned at just how many sided with Drexler and with just how few sided with Smalley -- a miniscule 2%!

Here are the entire poll results with 148 votes in:

Drexler: It is possible to create engineered nanoscale machinery for molecular manufacturing: 84%
Smalley: Nanobots are impossible and the assembly of complex molecular structures is more subtle and complex than advocates think: 2%
I'm still weighing the evidence: 11%
What's a nanobot, and who are these people? 2%

Jay Dugger comments on techlepathy

My transhumanist friend Jay Dugger dropped me an email today to comment on my techlepathy piece for Betterhumans.

"I think your techlepathy over-emphasizes hearing. Humans have many other sense modalities. Humans will soon transcieve live video (wearcam phone) to one another as easily as we now transcieve live audio (cell phone)."

To which I responded:

Ah, very good point. Ultimately, we're talking about direct access to our language interpretation centers of the brain. Currently the best and easiest way to do so is through hearing, so that's why I stressed that particular aspect.

Jay also recommended a couple of sci-fi novels on the subject: Stapledon's "Star Maker" and David Gerrold's science fiction series, "War Against the Chtorr"

Betterhumans press release

Here's the Betterhumans press release announcing our updated site:

New Betterhumans Website an Info Seeker's Delight

Leading science and technology Webzine Betterhumans.com gets cleaner interface, faster response times and new features to facilitate information foraging

Finding information on issues and developments in advancing science and technology just got easier.

Today's rapid pace of scientific and technological advancement makes it difficult to keep track of developments as they happen. With a mandate of connecting people to the future, editorial production company Betterhumans provides news, features and resources that help people make sense of accelerating change.

Now Betterhumans is pleased to announce a new version of its Betterhumans.com Website that's designed to make it even easier to access its leading science, technology and health-related content.

"If there's one thing that Internet users have shown time and again it's a craving for functionality, usability and the ability to easily locate information of interest," says Simon Smith, Editor-in-chief of Betterhumans. "The new Betterhumans.com has been designed to help people find the information they seek, as well as get that information faster."

Previous visitors to Betterhumans will immediately notice that the site is cleaner and more user-friendly, featuring drop-down menus to ease navigation. Behind the scenes, the site makes better use of caching and has been optimized in other ways to improve response times.

Information foragers will be happy about new topic-finder functionality that allows users to browse an index of all topics Betterhumans covers and to use this to access all editorial—from news items to columns—on a given topic. Each content item now also displays its topics, enabling users to link through from them to an index of related content. And new search functionality allows users to search for specific content, such as events and directory items.

The new version of Betterhumans.com marks the beginning of several Betterhumans initiatives planned for the second and third quarter of 2004 as the company seeks to expand its offering and increase its reach.

"The launch of the revised Website is an important milestone for us," says George Dvorsky, Deputy Editor of Betterhumans. "It's an integral step forward as we continue to improve Betterhumans at all levels."

About Betterhumans

Aiming to connect people to the future so that they can create it, Betterhumans is an editorial production company that's dedicated to having the best information, analysis and opinion on the impact of advancing science and technology. Betterhumans runs leading Website Betterhumans.com, connects advertisers with its Betterhumans.com audience, licenses editorial for syndication and republication and offers clients custom research and custom editorial services.

Michael Anissimov reports in from AHA2004

Michael Anissimov, the director of the Immortality Institute, is currently at AHA2004, the annual American Humanist Association's conference in Las Vegas. Michael writes in from the conference with a report (btw, one of the articles he's referring to in the Humanist is my "Better Living Through Transhumanism" article. We've also got a 1/2 page Betterhumans ad in that edition):

Hey everyone, just letting you all know that I'm in Las Vegas for AHA2004 and doing well. I only have 5 minutes of internet time remaining so I will be brief. First of all, I was somewhat astonished to see that 90% or more of conference attendees were seniors. So I knew the argument "this could happen within your lifetime..." wouldn't necessarily have much of an effect. Attendees did seem to be interested in passing on transhumanist ideas to their children, however. On the plus side, a copy of "The Humanist" was in everyone's conference packet, along with two articles on transhumanism! That set the stage nicely for the talk I was going to give. There were only about 30 attendees at my talk; it was held at the same time as "A Humanist Sex Writer Tells All" and some talk that seemed to be focused on bashing Bush and the conservatives. (A whole lot of that seems to be going on at this conference, at the exclusion of all else.) Daniel Dennett is flying in today and hopefully I will have the good fortune to talk to him in person this evening. This conference is quite different than the transhumanist conferences I've been to in the past... there seem to be many atheist factions involved in political infighting. It serves as a warning for the constant risk that transhumanism will fall to the same fate. The moral of the story is... do whatever you can to hold the transhumanist community together, as a strong group, despite all of our different ideas. Anyhoo, one minute left, so I'm out. Feel free to pass this along to wta-talk, big thanks to George D. btw!!

Michael Anissimov
Director, ImmInst.org

Betterhumans: Version 7.0

Man, what a day. It's just before midnight and Simon and I are putting the finishing touches on the updated Betterhumans site. This is the 7th incarnation of Betterhumans, and it's undeniably the best ever. We had a moment of panic after we uploaded the site and none of the dropdown menus were working. We were at a complete loss for about 20 minutes, but Simon eventually figured out the problem. We also composed a press release, which I'll post here tomorrow. I must go sleep now.

Chatting with Natasha Vita-More

Natasha Vita-More is helping us with some of the organizational challenges of TransVision 2004, particularly in the arts and culture area of the conference. We spoke on the phone today for over an hour and we came up with some very doable strategies. On the evening of August 6, after Steve Mann's keynote address, we will refit the foyer area of the JJR McLeod Auditorium for art presentations and exhibits. We're going to setup a couple of virtual galleries, play transhuman-themed music, and possibly have live performances. This will go on over the next two days, August 7 and 8. We're also thinking of having Stelarc give a talk on Saturday August 7, followed by film screenings into the night.

Betterhumans Editorial Advisory Board

We're putting together an Editorial Advisory Board at Betterhumans. Today I sent out a number of invitations to a select group of thinkers, activists, and futurists. Within hours I'm already getting a positive response. Already on the advisory team we have biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, nanotechnologists Mike Treder and Chris Phoenix, and transhumanist arts and culture expert Natasha Vita-More. There will be many more to come and I'll post their names as they confirm.

My invitation letter in part read:

We are currently in the process of assembling an Editorial Advisory Board for Betterhumans. It is our intention to create a board who will provide us with guidance and counsel, and to ensure that we continue to report the most relevant, accurate and vital information about current and pending science and technologies and their potential impacts on individuals, society and the human condition. On behalf of Betterhumans, I would like to extend an invitation to you to become a member of the Betterhumans editorial advisory team.

As a member of the board, your typical roles and responsibilities would include providing input and guidance into editorial and administrative policy and overall direction, goals and priorities for the publication. Members can serve as a sounding board for the editors and advise them on science, technology and social trends, to help identify potential contributors and editorial possibilities, and to respond to our direct inquiries.

Individual choices determine humanity's future

Rich Brooks offers a nice Mother's Day critque of Leon Kass's thanatophilia. In his column, Your Mother Should Know: Individual choices determine humanity's future, Brooks writes:

Death, Kass has written, is a blessing. "The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not."

It is death, Kass might say, that gives urgency to life. It drives us to discovery, to cross oceans and reach into the emptiness of space; it is the reason we squeeze pleasure and meaning from every moment and see beauty in every sunset.

If death is a blessing then why don't we embrace it? Why is life such a desperate enterprise?

The answer is written in our souls. Each of us has only one life -- a gift given by our mothers.

In our birth lies an unwritten pact with our mothers to live with meaning and purpose.

The slope is always slippery. When disease or hardship strikes, we decide as individuals whether to seek life-extending treatment. Taken collectively, these decisions set the course for humanity.

Our collective will to live drives the quest for cures and life-saving technology.

Thus taking advantage of medical breakthroughs affirms our humanity rather than diminishing it.

And I think that is what our mothers expect from us.

Bioetică şi religie

Catalin Sandu has translated my Betterhumans column The Seperation of Church and Bioethics into Romanian and posted it to his site, Net SF. He's also posted James Hughes's excellent piece, Monsters in the Media.

Betterhumans wins an award

The Biomaterials Network has given Betterhumans an award for being a top biotechnology site for April 2004. Biomat periodically distinguishes selected internet sites based on their top general quality, their scientific value and suitability to internet browsing. Yay for us!

Canadian Cyborg

A ground-breaking procedure will fit a nine-year-old boy from Nova Scotia with an implant that can expand without surgery:

The prosthesis, called a Repiphysis, contains a plastic material that can be lengthened without intrusion. Doctors use a device that creates a magnetic field to expand a spring that sits inside the implant. This makes the Repiphysis the first kind of prosthesis that does not require surgery to lengthen as the patient grows.

Ronald Bailey Coming to TV04

Good news: Reason science correspondant Ronald Bailey will be joining us at TransVision 2004.

Published in the Humanist

The May/June edition of the journal of the American Humanist Association has published my article, "Better Living Through Transhumanism." The same edition also has a lead article on "The Future of Immortality" by Brian Trent. Excellent, looks like we'll subvert the humanists in no time ;-) In all seriousness, I think humanism and transhumanism are essentially the same thing -- most humanists just don't realize this yet.

Marlow: Nano

Author John Marlow recently released Nano, a sci-fi novel that deals directly with transhuman issues, artificial superintelligence, and, of course, molecular nanotechnology. Word has it that this is a much more realistic and scientifically accurate book on the perils of Drexlerian nanotechnology than Michael Crichton's Prey. The plot summary is as follows:

Nanotechnology promises all things: immortality, invincibility, wealth beyond imagination—and the utter destruction of Mankind. One man has it—and no one knows who...

Mitchell Swain is the richest man in the world—until he announces "the ultimate technological breakthrough." The world stops for the press conference—and sees him assassinated.

No one knows what he was going to say.

Almost no one.

Jennifer Rayne intends to find out. A leading high-tech journalist, she was scheduled to interview Swain after the press conference. Instead, she investigates his murder.

What she finds is a scientist to whom Swain has funneled billions... A desperate U.S. government following the same clues... And a bizarre technology which promises invincibility, immortality, and the ability to destroy any enemy—or the earth itself.

Mankind has entered the final arms race.

It will last two days...

Be sure to check out James Hughes's interesting Changesurfer interview with Marlow about his new book.

Marlow has also recently launched his new column, Nanoveau, covering "the science, the speculation, and (occasionally) the politics of nanotechnology and related topics."

And Marlow is a "maybe" for TransVision 2004.

Blogger and Mozilla

My apologies to those who are having problems accessing my blog with Mozilla (my personal browser of choice). If you're getting gibberish, just hit reload. If you're getting the "Cannot find / file" error you're just going to have to use IE :-(